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ADAMS.  JOHN  QUINCY 
An  address  delivered  at  the 
request  of  a  committee  of  the 
of  Washington 


\ 


E 

286 
W2 
1821  a 


W.  C.  FOWLE 


BELIVERED 


At  the  request  of  a  Committee  of  the  Citizens  of  Washington  ; 


ON  THE  OCCASION  OF   READING 


THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 


ON  THE 


FOURTH  OF  JULY,   1821. 


BTf 


JOHN    QUINCY    ADAMS. 


CITY  OF  WASHINGTON  t 

PRINTED  BY  DAVIS    AND   FORCE,    PENNSYLVANIA  AVENUE. 
1821. 


LIBRARY  -^-~—     / 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
ANTA  BARBARA 


WASHINGTON,  July  4,  1821. 
SIR: 

THE  Committee  of  Arrangements  for  the  celebration  of  this 
day,  in  presenting  to  you  their  unfeigned  thanks  for  the 
patriotic  and  able  Address  which  you  have  obliged  them 
by  delivering,  solicit  the  favor  of  you  to  furnish  them  with  a 
copy  of  it,  for  publication  in  a  form  suited  to  its  merits. 

J.  P.  VAN  NESS, 
FONTAINE  MAURY, 
JOSEPH  GALES,  JR. 
JAMES  M.  VARNUM, 
ARCH.  HENDERSON. 
Hon.  J.  Q,.  ADAMS. 


To  the  ConimiU<>e  of  Arrar.rerrents  for  the 
Celebration  of  the  Anniversary  of  Inde- 
pendence at  ihe  City  of  Washington. 

WASHINGTON,  5  July,  1821. 
GENTLEMEN  : 

In  placing  at  your  disposal  a  copy  of  the  Address 
yesterday  delivered  in  compliance  with  your  invitation,  I  avail 
myself  of  the  occasion  of  expressing  through  you,  to  my  Fel- 
low-Citizens, the  assurance  of  my  gratitude  for  the  indulgence 
with  which  it  was  received. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

With  great  respect,  Gentlemen, 

Your  very  obedient  servant, 

JOHN  QUINCY  A,DAMS. 


ADDRESS. 


FELLOW-CITIZENS  : 

Until  within  a  few  days  preceding  that 
which  we  have  again  assembled  to  commemorate,  our 
Fathers,  the  people  of  this  Union,  had  constituted  a 
portion  of  the  British  nation  ;  a  nation  renowned  in  Arts 
and  Arms,  who,  from  a  small  Island  in  the  Atlantic  Ocean, 
had  extended  their  dominion  over  considerable  parts  of 
every  quarter  of  the  Globe.     Governed  themselves  by  SL 
race  of  kings,  whose  title  to  sovereignty  had  originally 
been  founded  in  conquest,  spell-bound  for  a  succession  of 
ages  under  that  portentous  system  of  despotism  and  of 
superstition  which  in  the  name  of  the  meek  arid  humble 
Jesus  had  been  spread  over  the  Christian  world,  the  his- 
tory of  this  nation  had,  for  a  period  of  seven  hundred 
years,  from  the  days  of  the  conquest  till  our  own,  exhib- 
ited a  Conflict  almost  continual,  between  the  oppressions 
of  power  and  the  claims  of  right.    In  the  theories  of  the 
Crown  and  the  Mitre  man  had  no  rights.     Neither  the 
body  nor  the  soul  of  the  individual  was  his  own.    From 
the  impenetrable  gloom  of  this  intellectual  darkness,  and 
the  deep  degradation  of  this  servitude,  the   British  na- 
tion had  partially  emerged.     The  martyrs  of  religious 
freedom  had  consumed  to  ashes  at  the  stake  :  the  cham- 
pions of  temporal  liberty  had  bowed  their  heads  upon 
the  scaffold ;  and  the  spirits  of  many  a  bloody  day  had 
left  their  earthly  vesture  upon  the  field  of  battle,  and  soar- 
ed to  plead  the  cause  of  Liberty  before  the  throne  of 
Heaven.     The  people  of  Britain,  through  long  ages  of 
civil  war,  had  extorted  from  their  tyrants  not  acknow- 
kdgements,  but  grants,  of  right.     With  this  concession 


they  had  been  content  to  stop  in  the  progress  of  human 
improvement.  They  received  their  freedom  as  a  dona- 
tion from  their  sovereigns ;  they  appealed  for  their  pri- 
vileges to  a  sign  manual  and  a  seal ;  they  held  their  title 
to  liberty,  like  their  title  to  lands,  from  the  bounty  of  a 
man ;  and  in  their  moral  and  political  chronology,  the 
great  charter  of  Runny  Mead  was  the  beginning  of  the 
world. 

From  the  earliest  ages  of  their  recorded  history,  the 
inhabitants  of  the  British  Islands  have  been  distinguished 
for  their  intelligence  and  their  spirit.  How  much  of  these 
two  qualities,  the  fountains  of  all  amelioration  in  the 
condition  of  men,  was  stifled  by  these  two  principles  of 
subserviency  to  ecclesiastical  usurpation,  and  of  holding 
rights  as  the  donation  of  kings,  this  is  not  the  occasion 
to  inquire. 

Of  their  tendency  to  palsy  the  vigor  and  enervate  the 
faculties  of  man,  all  philosophical  reasoning,  and  all  ac- 
tual experience,  concur  in  testimony. 

These  principles,  however,  were  not  peculiar  to  the 
people  of  Britain.  They  were  the  delusions  of  all  Eu- 
rope, still  the  most  enlightened'and  most  improvable  por- 
tion of  the  earth.  The  temporal  chain  was  riveted  up- 
on the  people  of  Britain  by  the  conquest.  Their  spirit- 
ual fetters  were  forged  by  subtlety  working  upon  super- 
stition. Baneful  as  the  effect  of  these  principles  was,  they 
could  not  for  ever  extinguish  the  light  of  reason  in  the 
human  mind.  The  discovery  of  the  Mariner's  Compass 
was  soon  followed  by  the  extension  of  intercourse  be- 
tween nations  the  most  distant,  and  which,  without  tljat 
light  beaming  in  darkness  to  guide  the  path  of  man  over 
the  boundless  waste  of  waters,  could  never  have  been 
known  to  each  other.  The  invention  of  Printing,  and  the 
composition  of  Gunpowder,  which  revolutionized  at  once 
the  art  and  science  of  war,  and  the  relations  of  peace ; 


the  revelation  of  India  to  Vasco  de  Gama ;  and  tlic  ui>- 
closure  to  Columbus  of  the  American  hemisphere,  all  re- 
sulted from  the  incompressible  energies  of  the  human  in- 
tellect, bound  and  crippled  as  it  was  by  the  double  cords 
of  ecclesiastical  imposture  and  political  oppression.  To 
these  powerful  agents  in  the  progressive  improvement  of 
our  species,  Britain  can  lay  no  claim.  For  them  the 
children  of  men  are  indebted  to  Italy,  to  Germany,  to 
Portugal,  and  to  Spain.  All  these  improvements,  how- 
ever, consisted  in  successful  researches  into  the  proper- 
ties and  modifications  of  external  nature.  The  religious 
reformation  was  an  improvement  in  the  science  of  mind  ; 
an  improvement  in  the  intercourse  of  man  with  his  Cre- 
"ator,  and  in  his  acquaintance  with  himself.  It  was  an 
advance  in  the  knoAvlege  of  his  duties  and  his  rights*  It 
was  a  step  in  the  progress  of  man  in  comparison  with 
which  the  Magnet  and  Gunpowder,  the  wonders  of  either 
India  ;  nay,  the  Printing  Press  itself,  were  but  the  paces 
of  a  pigmy  to  the  stride  of  a  giant.  If  to  this  step  of 
human  advancement  Germany  likewise  lays  claim  in  the 
person  of  Martin  Luther,  or  in  the  earlier  but  ineffectu- 
al martyrdom  of  John  Huss,  England  may  point  to  her 
Wicliffe  as  a  yet  more  primitive  vindicator  of  the  same 
righteous  cause,  and  may  insist  on  the  glory  of  having 
contributed  her  share  to  the  improvement  of  the  moral 
condition  of  man. 

The  corruptions  and  usurpations  of  the  Church  were 
the  immediate  objects  of  these  reformers ;  but,  at  the 
foundation  of  all  their  exertions,  there  was  a  single,  plain, 
and  almost  self-evident  principle — that  man  has  a  right  to 
the  exercise  of  his  own  reason.  It  was  this  principle 
which  the  sophistry  and  rapacity  of  the  Church  had  ob- 
scured and  obliterated,  and  which  the  intestine  divisions 
of  the  same  Church  itself  first  restored.  The  triumph  of 
reason  was  the  result  of  inquiry  and  discussion.  Ccutu- 


ries  of  desolating  wars  have  succeeded,  and  oceans  of 
human  blood  have  flowed  for  the  final  establishment  of 
this  principle  ;  but  it  was  from  the  darkness  of  the  Clois- 
ter that  the  first  spark  was  emitted,  and  from  the  arches 
ef  an  University  that  it  first  kindled  into  day.  From 
the  discussion  of  religious  rights  and  duties,  the  transi- 
tion to  that  of  the  political  and  civil  relations  of  men 
with  one  another,  was  natural  and  unavoidable  ;  in  both, 
the  reformers  were  met  by  the  weapons  of  temporal  pow- 
er. At  the  same  glance  of  reason,  the  tiara  would  have 
fallen  from  the  brow  of  priesthood,  and  the  despotic  scep- 
tre would  have  departed  from  the  hand  of  royalty,  but 
for  the  sword  by  which  they  were  protected — that  sword 
which,  like  the  flaming  sword  of  the  Cherubim,  turned 
every  way  to  debar  access  to  the  tree  of  life. 

The  double  contest  against  the  oppressors  of  the  Church 
and  State  was  too  appalling  for  the  vigor,  or  too  compre- 
hensive for  the  faculties  of  the  reformers  of  the  European 
Continent.  In  Britain  alone  was  it  undertaken,  and  in, 
Britain  but  partially  succeeded. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  that  fermentation  of  the  human 
intellect  which  brought  right  and  power  in  direct  and 
deadly  conflict  with  each  other,  that  the  rival  crowns  of 
the  two  portions  of  the  British  Island,  were  united  on 
the  same  head.  It  was  then  that,  released  from  the  ma- 
nacles of  ecclesiastical  domination,  the  minds  of  men  be- 
gan to  investigate  the  foundations  of  civil  government. 
But  the  mass  of  the  nation  surveyed  the  fabric  of  their 
institutions  as  it  existed  in  fact.  It  had  been  founded  in 
conquest ;  ithadbeen  cemented  in  servitude,  and  so  broken 
and  moulded  had  been  the  minds  of  this  brave  and  intel- 
ligent people  to  their  actual  condition,  that  instead  of 
solving  civil  society  into  its  first  elements  in  search  of 
their  rights,  they  looked  back  only  to  conquest  as  the 


wrigin  of  their  liberties,  and  claimed  their  rights  but  as 
donations  from  their  kings. 

This  faltering  assertion  of  freedom  is  not  chargeable 
indeed  upon  the  whole  nation.  There  were  spirits  ca- 
pable of  tracing  civil  government  to  its  foundation  in 
the  moral  and  physical  nature  of  man  ;  but  conquest  and 
servitude  were  so  mingled  up  in  every  particle  of  the  so- 
cial existence  of  the  nation,  that  they  had  become  vital- 
ly necessary  to  them,  as  a  portion  of  the  fluid,  itself  des- 
tructive of  life,  is  indispensably  blended  with  the  atmos- 
phere in  which  we  live. 

Fellow-Citizens,  it  was  in  the  heat  of  this  war  of  moral 
elements,  which  brought  one  Stuart  to  the  block,  and 
hurled  another  from  his  throne,  that  our  forefathers  sought 
Fefuge  from  its  fury,  in  the  then  wilderness  of  this  Wes- 
tern World. 

They  were  willing  exiles  from  a  country  dearer  to  them 
than  life. — But  they  were  the  exiles  of  liberty  and  of  con- 
science, dearer  to  them  even  than  their  country.  They 
came  too  with  Charters  from  their  kings :  for  even  in 
removing  to  another  hemisphere,  they  "  cast  longing,  lin- 
gering, looks  behind,"  and  were  anxiously  desirous  of  re- 
taining ties  of  connexion  with  their  country,  which,  in 
the  solemn  compact  of  a  charter,  they  hoped  by  the  cor- 
responding links  of  allegiance  and  protection  to  pre- 
serve. 

But  to  their  sense  of  right,  the  charter  was  only  the 
ligament  between  them,  their  country,  and  their  king. 
Transported  to  a  new  world,  they  had  relations  with  one 
another,  and  relations  with  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  of 
the  country  to  which  they  carne,  for  which  no  royal 
charter  could  provide.  The  tirst  settlers  of  the  Ply- 
mouth colony,  at  the  eve  of  landing  from  their  ship, 
therefore,  bound  themselves  together  by  a  written  co- 
venant;  and,  immediately  after  landing,  purchased  from 
the  Indian  natives  the  right  of  settlement  upon  the  soil. 

e> 


10 

Tims  was  a  social  compact  formed  upon  the  elementa- 
ry principles  of  civil  society,  in  which  conquest  and 
servitude  had  no  part.  The  slough  of  brutal  force  wa? 
entirely  cast  off:  all  was  voluntary ;  all  was  unbiassed 
consent ;  all  was  the  agreement  of  soul  with  soul. 

Other  colonies  were  successively  founded,  and  other 
charters  granted,  until,  in  the  compass  of  a  century  and 
a  half,  thirteen  distinct  British  Provinces  peopled  the 
Atlantic  shores  of  the  North  American  continent  with 
two  millions  of  freemen ;  possessing  by  their  charters 
the  rights  of  British  Subjects,  and  nurtured  by  their  po- 
sition and  education,  in  the  more  comprehensive  and 
original  doctrines  of  human  rights.  From  their  infancy 
they  had  been  treated  by  the  parent  state  with  neglect, 
harshness,  and  injustice.  Their  charters  had  often  been 
disregarded  and  violated  ;  their  commerce  restricted  and 
shackled;  their  interests  wantonly  or  spitefully  sacri- 
ficed; so  that  the  hand  of  the  parent  had  been  scarcely 
ever  felt,  but  in  the  alternate  application  of  whips  and 
scorpions. 

When  in  spite  of  all  these  persecutions,  by  the  natural 
vigor  of  their  constitution,  they  were  just  attaining  the 
maturity  of  political  manhood,  a  British  Parliament,  in 
contempt  of  the  clearest  maxims  of  natural  equity,  in 
defiance  of  the  fundamental  principle  upon  which  British 
freedom  itself  had  been  cemented  with  British  blood  : 
on  the  naked  unblushing  allegation  of  absolute  and  un- 
controllable power,  undertook  by  their  act,  to  levy,  with- 
out representation  and  without  consent,  taxes  upon  the 
people  of  America,  for  the  benefit  of  the  people  of 
Britain.  This  enormous  project  of  public  robbery  was 
HO  sooner  made  known,  than  it  excited  throughout  the 
colonies  one  general  burst  of  indignant  resistance.  It 
was  abandoned,  reasserted  and  resumed,  until  fleets  and 
armies  were  transported,  to  record  in  the  characters  of 


11 

fire,  famine,  and  desolation,  the  transatlantic  wisdom  of 
British  legislation,  and  the  tender  mercies  of  British  con- 
sanguinity. 

Fellow-citizens,  I  am  speaking  of  days  long  past. 
Ever  faithful  to  the  sentiment  proclaimed  in  the  paper* 
which  I  am  about  to  present  once  more  to  your  memory 
of  the  past  and  to  your  forecast  of  the  future  ;  you  will 
hold  the  people  of  Britain,  as  you  hold  the  rest  of  man- 
kind, Enemies  in  war;  in  peace  Friends.  The  conflict 
for  Independence  is  now  itself  but  a  record  of  history. 
The  resentments  of  that  age  may  be  buried  in  oblivion. 
The  stoutest  hearts  which  then  supported  the  tug  of  war 
are  cold  under  the  clod  of  the  valley.  My  purpose  is  to 
rekindle  no  angry  passion  from  its  embers :  but  this  an- 
nual solemn  perusal  of  the  instrument  which  proclaimed 
to  the  world  the  causes  of  your  existence  as  a  nation,  is 
not  without  its  just  and  useful  purpose. 

It  is  not  by  the  yearly  reiteration  of  the  wrongs  en- 
dured by  your  fathers,  to  evoke  from  the  Sepulchre  of 
Time,  the  shades  of  departed  Tyranny ;  it  is  not  to  dra\jr 
from  their  dread  abode  the  frailties  of  an  unfortunate 
monarch  who  now  sleeps  with  his  fathers,  and  the  suffering* 
of  whose  latter  days  may  have  atoned  at  the  bar  of  Di- 
Tine  Mercy,  for  the  sins  which  the  accusing  Angel  will 
read  from  t his  scroll  to  his  charge ;  it  is  not  to  exult  iu 
the  great  moral  triumph  by  which  the  Supreme  Governor 
of  the  world  crowned  the  cause  of  your  country  with 
success.  No,  the  purpose  for  which  you  listen  with  re- 
newed and  never-languishing  delight  to  the  reading  of 
this  paper  is  of  a  purer  and  more  exalted  cast.  It  is 
sullied  with  no  vindictive  recollection.  It  is  degraded 
by  no  rankling  resentment.  It  is  inflated  with  no  vain 
and  idle  exultation  of  victory.  The  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence in  its  primary  purport  was  merely  an  oc- 


*  The  Declaration  of  Independence  ;  read,  on  this  occasion,  from  the 
original,  which  is  in  the  office  of  the  Department  of  State. 


12 

caaional  state  paper.  It  was  a  solemn  exposition  to  the 
World,  of  the  causes  which  had  compelled  the  people  of 
a  small  portion  of  the  British  empire  to  cast  off  the  al- 
legiance and  renounce  the  protection  of  the  British 
king;;  and  to  dissolve  their  social  connexion  with  the 
British  people.  In  the  annals  of  the  human  race,  the 
separation  of  one  people  into  two,  is  an  event  of  no  un- 
common occurrence.  The  successful  resistance  of  a 
people  against  oppression,  to  the  downfall  of  the  tyrant 
and  of  tyranny  itself,  is  the  lesson  of  many  an  age,  and 
of  almost  every  clime.  It  lives  in  the  venerable  records 
of  Holy  Writ.  It  beams  in  the  brightest  pages  of  profane 
history.  The  names  of  Pharaoh  and  Moses,  of  Tarquin 
and  Junius  Brutus,  of  Geisler  and  Tell,  of  Christiern 
and  Gustavus  Vasa,  of  Philip  of  Austria  and  William  of 
Orange,  stand  in  long  array  through  the  visto  of  Time, 
like  the  Spirit  of  Evil  and  the  Spirit  of  Good,  in  embat- 
tled opposition  to  each  other,  from  the  mouldering  ages 
of  antiquity,  to  the  recent  memory  of  our  fathers,  and 
from  the  burning  plains  of  Palestine,  to  the  polar  frost  of 
Scandinavia.  For  the  Independence  of  North  America, 
there  were  ample  and  sufficent  causes  in  the  laws  of 
moral  and  physical  nature.  The  tie  of  colonial  subjec- 
tion, is  compatible  with  the  essential  purposes  of  civil 
government,  only  when  the  condition  of  the  subordinate 
state  is  from  its  weakness  incompetent  to  its  own  pro- 
tection. Is  the  greatest  moral  purpose  of  civil  govern- 
ment the  administration  of  justice  ?  And  if  justice  has 
been^truly  detiued  the  constant  and  perpetual  will  of  secu- 
ring to  every  one  his  right,  how  absurd  and  impracticable 
is  that  form  of  polity,  in  which  the  dispenser  of  justice 
is  in  one  quarter  of  the  globe,  and  he  to  whom  justice 
is  to  be  dispensed  is  in  another ;  where  "  moons  revolve 
and  oceans  roll  between  the  order  and  its  execution  ;" 
where  time  and  space  must  be  annihilated  to  secure  to 


13 

every  one  his  right.  The  tie  of  colonial  subjection  may 
suit  the  relations  between  a  great  naval  power,  and  the 
settlers  of  a  small  and  remote  Island  in  the  incipient 
stages  of  society  :  but  was  it  possible  for  British  intel- 
ligence to  imagine,  or  British  sense  of  justice  to  desire, 
that  through  the  boundless  ages  of  time,  the  swarming 
myriads  of  freemen,  who  were  to  civilize  the  wilderness, 
and  fill  with  human  life  the  solitudes  of  this  immense 
•ontinent,  should  receive  the  mandates  of  their  earthly 
destinies  from  a  council  chamber  at  St.  James's,  or  bow 
forever  in  submission  to  the  omnipotence  of  St.  Ste- 
phen's Chapel?  Are  the  essential  purposes  of  civil  gov- 
ernment, to  administer  to  the  wants,  and  to  fortify  the 
infirmities  of  solitary  man?  To  unite  the  sinews  of  num- 
berless arms,  and  combine  the  councils  of  multitudes  of 
minds,  for  the  promotion  of  the  well-being  of  all  ?  The 
first  moral  element  then  of  this  composition  is  sympathy 
between  the  members  of  which  it  consists  ;  the  second 
is  sympathy  between  the  giver  and  the  receiver  of  the 
Law.  The  sympathies  of  men  begin  with  the  affections 
of  domestic  life.  They  are  rooted  in  the  natural  rela- 
tions of  husband  and  wife,  of  parent  and  child,  of  brother 
and  sister;  thence  they  spread  through  the  social  and 
moral  propinquities  of  the  neighbor  and  friend,  to  the 
broader  and  more  complicated  relations  of  countryman 
and  fellow-citizen ;  terminating  only  with  the  circum- 
ference of  the  globe  which  we  inhabit,  in  the  co-exten- 
sive charities  incident  to  the  common  nature  of  man. 
To  each  of  these  relations,  different  degrees  of  sympathy 
are  allotted  by  the  ordinances  of  nature.  The  sympa- 
thies of  domestic  life  are  not  more  sacred  and  obligato- 
ry, but  closer  and  more  powerful,  than  those  of  neigh- 
borhood and  friendship.  The  tie  which  binds  us  to  our 
country,  is  not  more  holy  in  the  sight  of  God,  but  it  is 
more  deeply  seated  in  our  nature,  more  tender  and  en- 


14 

deariug,  than  that  looser  link  which  merely  connects  us 
with  our  fellow  mortal  man. 

It  is  a  common  Government  that  constitutes  our 
Country.  But  in  THAT  association,  all  the  sympathies 
of  domestic  life  and  kindred  blood,  all  the  moral  liga- 
tures of  friendship  and  of  neighborhood,  are  combined 
with  that  instinctive  and  mysterious  connexion  between 
man  and  physical  nature,  which  binds  the  first  percep- 
tions of  childhood  in  a  chain  of  sympathy  with  the  last 
gasp  of  expiring  age,  to  the  spot  of  our  nativity,  and  the 
natural  objects  by  which  it  is  surrounded.  These  sym- 
pathies belong  and  are  indispensable  to  the  relations  or- 
dained by  nature  between  the  individual  and  his  country. 
They  dwell  in  the  memory  and  are  indelible  in  the 
hearts  of  the  first  settlers  of  a  distant  colony.  These 
are  the  feelings  under  which  the  Children  of  Israel  "  sat 
down  by  the  rivers  of  Babylon,  and  wept  when  they  re- 
membered Zion."  These  are  the  sympathies  under 
which  they  "  hung  their  harps  upon  the  willows,"  and 
instead  of  songs  of  mirth,  exclaimed,  "  If  I  forget  thee, 
O  Jerusalem,  let  my  right  hand  forget  her  cunning." 
But  these  sympathies  can  never  exist  for  a  country, 
which  we  have  never  seen.  They  are  transferred  in 
the  breasts  of  the  succeeding  generations,  from  the 
country  of  human  institution,  to  the  country  of  their 
birth ;  from  the  land  of  which  they  have  only  heard,  to 
the  land  where  their  eyes  first  opened  to  the  day.  The 
ties  of  neighborhood  are  broken  up,  those  of  friendship 
can  never  be  formed,  with  an  intervening  ocean  ;  and 
the  natural  ties  of  domestic  life,  the  all-subduing  sympa- 
thies of  love,  the  indissoluble  bonds  of  marriage,  the 
heart-riveted  kindliness  of  consanguinity,  gradually  wi- 
ther and  perish  in  the  lapse  of  a  few  generations.  All 
the  elements  which  form  the  basis  of  that  sympathy  be- 
tween the  individual  and  his  country  are  dissolved. — 
Long  before  the  Declaration  of  Independence  the  grea< 


15 

mass  of  the  People  of  America  and  of  the  People  of 
Britain,  had  become  total  strangers  to  each  other.  The 
people  of  America  were  known  to  the  people  of  Britain 
only  by  the  transactions  of  trade;  by  shipments  of  lum- 
ber and  flaxseed,  indigo  and  tobacco.  They  were 
known  to  the  government  only  by  half  a  dozen  colonial 
agents,  humble,  and  often  spurned  suitors  at  the  feet  of 
power,  and  by  royal  governors,  minions  of  patronage, 
sent,  from  the  footstool  of  a  throne  beyond  the  seas,  to 
rule  a  people  of  whom  they  knew  nothing;  as  if  an  in- 
habitant of  the  moon  should  descend  to  give  laws  to  the 
dwellers  upon  earth.  Here  and  there,  a  man  of  letters 
and  a  statesman,  conversant  with  all  history,  knew 
something  of  the  colonies,  as  he  knew  something  of  Co- 
chin-China and  Japan.  Yet  even  the  prime  minister  of 
England,  urging  upon  his  omnipotent  Parliament  laws 
for  grinding  the  colonies  to  submission,  could  talk,  with- 
out amazing  or  diverting  his  hearers,  of  the  Island  of 
Virginia  :  even  Edmund  Burke,  a  man  of  more  ethereal 
mind,  apologizing  to  the  people  of  Bristol  for  the  offence 
of  sympathizing  with  the  distresses  of  our  country,  rava- 
ged by  the  fire  and  sword  of  Britons,  asked  indulgence 
for  his  feelings  on  the  score  of  general  humanity,  and 
expressly  declared  that  the  Americans  were  a  nation  ut- 
ter strangers  to  him,  and  among  whom  he  was  riot  sure  of 
having  a  single  acquaintance.  The  sympathies  there-* 
fore  most  essential  to  the  communion  of  country  were, 
between  the  British  and  American  people,  extinct. — 
Those  most  indispensable  to  the  just  relation  between 
sovereign  and  subject,  had  never  existed  and  could  not 
exist  between  the  British  Government  and  the  Americau 
People.  The  connexion  was  unnatural ;  and  it  was  iu 
the  moral  order,  no  less  than  in  the  positive  decrees, 
of  Providence,  that  it  should  be  dissolved. 

Yet,  Fellow-Citizens,  these  .are  not  the  causes  of  the 


16 

separation  assigned  in  the  paper  which  I  am  about  to 
read.  The  connexion  between  different  portions  of  the 
same  people,  and  between  a  people  and  their  govern- 
ment, is  a  connexion  of  duties  as  well  as  of  rights.  In 
the  long  conflict  of  twelve  years  which  had  preceded  and 
led  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  our  fathers  had 
been  not  less  faithful  to  their  duties,  than  tenacious  of 
their  rights.  Their  resistance  had  not  been  rebellion. 
It  was  not  a  restive  and  ungovernable  spirit  of  ambition 
bursting  from  the  bonds  of  colonial  subjection,  it  was  the 
deep  and  wounded  sense  of  successive  wrongs,  upon 
which  complaint  had  been  only  answered  by  aggravation, 
and  petition  repelled  with  contumely,  which  had  driven 
them  to  their  last  stand  upon  the  adamantine  rock  of 
human  rights. 

It  was  then,  fifteen  months  after  the  blood  of  Lexing- 
ton and  Bunker's  Hill,  after  Charlestown  and  Falmouth, 
tired  by  British  hands,  were  but  heaps  of  ashes,  after 
the  ear  of  the  adder  had  been  turned  to  two  successive 
supplications  to  the  throne  ;  after  two  successive  ap- 
peals to  the  people  of  Britain,  as  Friends,  Countrymen, 
and  Brethren,  to  which  no  responsive  voice  of  sympa- 
thetic tenderness  had  been  returned — 

"Nought  but  the  noise  of  drums  and  timbrels  loud, 
"  Their  children's  cries  unheard  that  passed  thro'  fire 
"  To  the  grim  idol." 

Then  it  was,  that  the  Thirteen  United  Colonies  of  North 
America,  by  their  delegates  in  Congress  assembled,  ex- 
ercising the  first  act  of  sovereignty  by  right  ever  inhe- 
rent in  the  people,  but  never  to  be  resorted  to,  save  at 
the  awful  crisis  when  civil  society  is  solved  into  its  first 
elements,  declared  themselves  free  and  independent 
States,  and  two  days  afterwards,  in  justification  of  that 
act,  issued  this  Unanimous  Declaration  of  the  Thirteen 
United  States  of  America. 


17 


Is  CONGRESS,  JULY  4,  1770. 

The  Unanimous  Declaration  of  the  Thirteen  United  States 
of  America. 

WHEN,  in  the  course  of  human  events,  it  becomes  necessary  for  one 
people  to  dissolve  the  political  bands  which  have  connected  them  with 
another,  and  to  assume,  among  the  powers  of  the  earth,  the  separate 
and  equal  station  to  which  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  nature's  God  en- 
title them,  a  decent  respect  to  the  opinions  of  mankind  requires  that 
they  should  declare  the  causes  which  impel  them  to  the  separation. 

We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident — that  all  men  are  created 
equal ;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  unalienable 
rights  ;  that  among  these  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 
That  to  secure  these  rights,  governments  are  instituted  among  men,  de- 
riving their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed ;  that  when- 
ever any  form  of  government  becomes  destructive  of  these  ends,  it  is  the 
right  of  the  people  to  alter  or  to  abolish  it,  and  to  institute  new  govern- 
ment, laying  its  foundation  on  such  principles,  and  organizing  its  powers 
in  such  form,  as  to  them  shall  seem  most  likely  to  effect  their  safety  and 
happiness.  Prudence,  indeed,  will  dictate,  that  governments  long  es»- 
tablished  should  not  be  changed  for  light  and  transient  causes  ;  and  ac- 
cordingly all  experience  hath  shown,  that  mankind  are  more  disposed  to 
suffer  while  evils  are  sufferable,  than  to  right  themselves  by  abolishing 
tiie  forms  to  which  they  are  accustomed.  But  when  a  long  train  of 
abuses  and  usurpations,  pursuing  invariably  the  same  object,  evinces  a 
design  to  reduce  them  under  absolute  despotism,  it  is  their  right,  it  is 
their  duty,  to  throw  off  such  government,  and  to  provide  new  guards  for 
their  future  security.  Such  has  been  the  patient  sufferance  of  these  co- 
lonies; and  such  is  now  the  necessity  which  constrains  them  to  alter 
their  former  systems  of  government.  The  history  of  the  present  king  of 
Great  Britain,  is  a  history  of  repeated  injuries  and  usurpations,  all  hav- 
ing in  direct  object  the  establishment  of  an  absolute  tyranny  over  these 
States.  To  prove  this,  let  facts  be  submitted  to  a  candid  world. 

He  has  refused  his  assent  to  laws  the  most  wholesome  and  necessary 
for  the  public  good. 

He  has  forbidden  his  governors  to  pass  laws  of  immediate  and  press- 
ing importance,  unless  suspended1  in  their  operation,  till  his  assent  should, 
be  obtained  ;  and  when  so  suspended,  he  has  utterly  neglected  to  attend 
to  them.  He  has  refused  to  pass  other  laws  for  the  accommodation  of 
large  districts  of  people,  unless  those  people  would  relinquish  the  right 
of  representation  in  the  legislature — aright  inestimable  to  Them,  and 
formidable  to  tyrants  only. 

3 


18 

He  has  railed  together  legislative  bodies  at  places  unusual,  uncom- 
fortable, and  distant  from  the  repository  of  their  public  records,  for  the 
iolt?  purpose  of  fatiguing  them  into  compliance  with  his  measures. 

He  has  dissolved  representative  heuses  repeatedly,  for  opposing,  with 
manly  firmness,  his  invasions  on  the  rights  of  the  people. 

He  has  refused  for  a  long  time  after  such  dissolutions,  to  cause  others 
to  be  elected  ;  whereby  the  legislative  powers,  incapable  of  annihila- 
tion, have  returned  to  the  people  af  large,  for  their  exercise,  the  State 
remaining,  in  the  mean  trine,  exposed  to  all  thfe  dangers  of  invasion 
from  without,  and  convulsions  within. 

He  has  endeavored  to  prevent  the  population  of  these  States ;  for  ihtit 
prtrpose  obstructing  the  laws  for  naturalization  of  foreigners  ;  refusing  to 
pass  others  to  encourage  their  migration  hither,  and  raising  the  conditions 
of  new  appropriations  of  lands. 

He  has  obstructed  the  administration  of  justice,  by  refusing  his  assent 
to  laws  for  establishing  judiciary  powers. 

He  has  made  judges  dependent  on  his  will  alone,  for  the  tenure  of 
their  offices,  and  the  amount  and  payment  of  their  salaries. 

He  has  erected  a  multitude  of  new  offices,  and  sent  hither  swarms  t>f 
officers,  to  harass  oui  people,  and  eat  out  iheir  substance. 

He  has  kept  among  us,  in  times  of  peace,  standing  armies,  without  the 
consent  of  our  legislatures. 

He  has  affected  to  render  the  military  independent  of,  and  superior 
to,  the  civil  power. 

He  has  combined  with'  others  to  subject  us  to  a  jurisdiction  foreign  tr 
our  constitution,  and  unacknowledged  by  our  laws;  giving  his-assent  t© 
their  acts  of  pretended  legislation*: 
For  quartering  large  bodies  of  armed  troops  among  us: 
For  protecting  them,  by  a  mock  trial,  from  punishment  for  any  mur- 
ders which  they  should  commit  on  the  inhabitants  of  these  States : 
For  cutting  off  our  trade  with  all  parts  of  the  world  : 
For  imposing  taxes  on  us  without  our  consent : 
For  depriving  us,  in  many  cases,  of  the  benefits  of  trial  by  jury  : 
For  transporting  us  beyond  seas  to  be  tried  for  pretended  offences : 
For  abolishing  the  free  system  of  English  laws  in  a  neighboring  Pro- 
vince, establishing  therein  an  arbitrary  government,    and  enlarging  ita 
boundaries,  so  as  to  render  it  at  once  an  example  and  fit  instrument  for 
introducing  the  same  absolute  rule  into  these  colonies  : 

For  taking  away  our  charters,  abolishing  our  most  valuable  laws, 
and  altering,  fundamentally,  the  forms  of  our  governments  : 

For  suspending  our  own  legislatures,  and  declaring  themselves  itt- 
vefsted  with  power  to  legislate  for  us  in  all  cases  whatsoever. 


19 

He  has  abdicated  government  here,  by  declaring  us  out  of  his  protecr 
tion,  and  waging  war  against  us. 

He  has  plundered  our  seas,  ravaged  our  coasts,  burnt  our  towns,  and 
destroyed  the  lives  of  our  people. 

He  is  at  this  time  transporting  large  armies  of  foreign  mercenaries  to 
complete  the  works  of  death,  desolation,  and  tyranny,  already  begun 
with  circumstances  of  cruelty  and  perfidy,  scarcely  paralleled  in  the 
most  -barbarous  ages,  and  totally  unworthy  the  head  of  a  civilized 
nation. 

He -has  constrained  our  fellow-citizens,  taken  captive  on  the  high  seas, 
to  bear  arms  against  their  country,  to  become  the  executioners  of  their 
friends  and  brethren,  or  to  fall  themselves  by  their  hands. 

He  has  excited  domestic  insurrections  amongst  us,  and  has  endea- 
vored to  bring  on  the  inhabitants-of  our  frontiers  the  merciless  Indian 
savages,  whose  known  rule  of  warfare  is  an  undistinguished  destruction 
»f  all  ages,  sexes,  and  conditions. 

In  every  stage  of  these  oppressions  we  have  petitioned  for  redress  in 
the  most  humble  terms  :  our  repeated  petitions  have  been  answered  only 
by  repealed  .injury.  A  prince,  whose  character  is  thus  marked  by  every 
act  which  may  define  a  tyrant,  is  unfit  to  be  the  ruler  of  a  free  people. 

Nor  have  we  been  wanting  in  attention  to  our  British  brethren.  We 
have  warned  them,  from  time  to  time,  of  attempts  by  their  legislature  to 
extend  an  unwarrantable  jurisdiction  over  us.  We  have  reminded 
them  cf  the  circumstances  of  our  emigration  and  settlement  here.  We 
have  appealed  to  their  native  justice  and  magnanimity,  and  we  have 
conjured  them  by  the  ties  of  our  common  kindred  to  disavow  these 
usurpations,  which  would  inevitably  interrupt  our  connexions  and  cor- 
respondence. They  too  have  been  deaf  to  the  voice  of  justice  and  of 
consanguinity.  We  must,  therefore,  acquiesce  in  the  necessity  which 
denounces  our  separation,  and  hold  them  as  we  hold  the  rest  of  man- 
kind, enemies  in  war,  in  peaee  friends. 

We, -therefore,  the  representatives  of  the  United  States  of  America, 
in  general  congress  assembled,  appealing  to  the  Supreme  Judge  of  the 
world,  for  the  rectitude  of  .our  intentions,  do,  in  the  name  and  by  the 
authority  of  the  good  people  of  these  colonies,  solemnly  publish  and  de- 
clare, that  these  united  colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  free  and 
independent  States ;  that  they  are  absolved  from  all  allegiance  lo  the 
•British  crown,  and  that  all  political  connexion  between  them  and  the 
state  of  Great  Britain,  is,  and  ought  to  be,  totally  dissolved  ;  and  that 
as  free  and  independent  States,  they  have  full  power  to  levy  war,  con- 
clude peace,  contract  alliances,  establish  commerce,  and  to  do  all  othy: 
acts  and  things  which  independent  States  may  of  right  do.  And  for  th,e 
support  of  this  declaration,  with  a  firm  reliance  en  the  protection  of  Dj- 


vine  Providence,  we  mutually  pledge  to  each  other  our  lives,  our  for- 
tunes, and  our  sacred  honor. 

JOHN  HANCOCK. 


Josiah  Bartlett, 

John  Witherspoon, 

Charles  Carroll,  of 

William  Whrpple, 

Francis  Hopkiuson, 

Carrollton. 

Matthew  Thornton. 

John  Hart, 

Abraham  Ctark. 

George  Wythe, 

Samuel  Adams, 

Richard  Henry  Lee, 

John  Adams, 

Robert   Morris, 

Thomas  Jefferson, 

Robert  Treat  Paine, 

Benjamin  Rush, 

Benjamin  Harrison, 

Elbridge  Gerry. 

Benjamin   Franklin, 

Thomas  Nelson,  jun. 

John  Morton, 

Francis  Lightfoot  Ler,, 

Stephen  Hopkins, 

George  Clymer, 

Carter  Braxton. 

William  Ellery. 

James  Smith, 

George  Taylor, 

William  Hooper, 

Roger  Sherman, 

James  Wilson, 

Joseph    Hewes, 

Samuel  Huntington, 

George  Ross. 

John    Penn. 

William  Williams, 

OHver  Wolcott. 

Cesar  Rodney, 

Edward  Rutledge, 

George  Read, 

Thomas  Heyward,jr. 

William  Floyd, 

Thomas  M'Kean. 

Thomas  Lynch,  jr. 

Philip  Livingston, 

Arthur  Middleton. 

Francis  Lewis, 

Samuel  Chase, 

Lewis  Morris. 

William  Paca, 

Button  Gwinnett, 

Thomas  Stone,  L3~man  Hall, 

Richard  Stockton,  George  Walton. 

It  is  not,  let  me  repeat,  fellow-citizens,  it  is  not  the 
long  enumeration  of  intolerable  wrongs  concentrated  in 
this  Declaration  ;  it  is  not  the  melancholy  catalogue  of 
alternate  oppression  and  entreaty,  of  reciprocated  indig- 
nity and  remonstrance,  upon  which,  in  the  celebration 
of  this  anniversary,  your  memory  delights  to  dwell.  Nor 
is  it  yet  that  the  justice  of  your  cause  was  vindicated  by 
the  God  of  Battles  ;  that  in  a  conflict  of  seven  years,  the 
history  of  the  war  by  which  you  maintained  that  Decla- 
ration, became  the  history  of  the  civilized  world  ;  that 
the  unanimous  voice  of  enlightened  Europe,  and  the 
verdict  of  an  after  age,  have  sanctioned  your  assumption 
of  sovereign  power  ;  and  that  the  name  of  your  WASH- 
INGTON is  enrolled  upon  the  records  of  time,  first  hi 
the  glorious  line  of  heroic  virtue.  It  is  not  that  the 


21 

monarch  himself,  who  had  been  your  oppressor,  was 
compelled  to  recognise  you  as  a  sovereign  and  indepen- 
dent people,  and  that  the  nation,  whose  feelings  of  fra- 
ternity for  you  had  slumbered  in  the  lap  of  pride,  was 
awakened  in  the  arms  of  humiliation  to  your  equal  and 
no  longer  contested  rights.  The  primary  purpose  of 
this  Declaration,  the  proclamation  to  the  world  of  the 
causes  of  our  Revolution,  is  "with  thdVears  beyond  the 
flood."  It  is  of  no  more  interest  to  us  than  the  chastity  of 
Lucretia,  or  the  apple  on  the  head  of  the  child  of  Tell. 
Little  less  than  forty  years  have  revolved  since  the  strug- 
gle for  independence  was  closed;  another  generation 
has  arisen  ;  and,  in  the  assembly  of  nations,  our  Republic 
is  already  a  matron  of  mature  age.  The  cause  of  your 
independence  is  no  longer  upon  trial ;  the  final  sentence 
upon  it  has  long  been  passed  upon  earth  and  ratified  in 
Heaven. 

The  interest,  which  in  this  paper  has  survived  the  oc- 
casion upon  which  it  was  issued  ;  the  interest  which  is 
of  every  age  and  every  clime ;  the  interest  which  quick- 
ens with  the  lapse  of  years,  spreads  as  it  grows  old,  and 
brightens  as  it  recedes,  is  in  the  principles  which  it  pro- 
claims. It  was  the  first  solemn  declaration  by  a  nation 
of  the  only  legitimate  foundation  of  civil  government. 
It  was  the  corner  stone  of  a  new  fabric,  destined  to  co- 
ver the  surface  of  the  globe.  It  demolished  at  a  stroke 
the  lawfulness  of  all  governments  founded  upon  conquest. 
It  swept  away  all  the  rubbish  of  accumulated  centuries 
of  servitude.  It  announced  in  practical  form  to  the 
world  the  transcendent  truth  of  the  unalienable  sove- 
reignty of  the  people.  It  proved  that  the  social  compact 
was  no  figment  of  the  imagination  :  but  a  real,  solid,  and 
sacred  bond  of  the  social  union.  From  the  day  of  this 
Declaration,  the  people  of  North  America  were  no  lon- 
ger the  fragment  of  a  distant  empire,  imploring  justice 
and  mercy  from  an  inexorable  master  in  another  hemis- 


22 

pherc.  They  were  no  longer  children  appealing  in  vaiu 
to  the  sympathies  of  a  heartless  mother;  no  longer  sub- 
jects leaning  upon  the  shattered  columns  of  royal  pro- 
mises, and  invoking  the  faith  of  parchment  to  secure 
their  rights.  They  were  a  nation,  asserting  as  of  right, 
and  maintaining  by  war,  its  own  existence.  A  nation 
was  born  in  a  day — 

"  How  many  ages  hence 
"  Shall  this,  their  lofty  scene,  be  acted  o'er 
"  In  states  unborn,  and  accents  yet  unknown?" 

It  will  be  acted  o'er,  fellow-citizens,  but  it  can  never 
be  repeated.  It  stands,  and  must  for  ever  stand,  alone,  a 
beacon  on  the  summit  of  the  mountain,  to  which  all  the 
inhabitants  of  the  earth  may  turn  their  eyes  for  a  genial 
and  saving  light  till  time  shall  be  lost  in  eternity,  and  this 
globe  itself  dissolve,  nor  leave  a  wreck  behind.  It  stands 
for  ever,  a  light  of  admonition  to  the  rulers  of  men,  a  light 
of  salvation  and  redemption  to  the  oppressed.  So  long 
as  this  planet  shall  be  inhabited  by  human  beings,  so  long 
as  man  shall  be  of  social  nature,  so  long  as  government 
shall  be  necessary  to  the  great  moral  purposes  of  socie- 
ty, and  so  long  as  it  shall  be  abused  to  the  purposes  of 
oppression,  so  long  shall  this  Declaration  hold  out  to  the 
sovereign  and  to  the  subject  the  extent  and  the  bounda- 
ries of  their  respective  rights  and  duties,  founded  in  the 
laws  of  nature,  and  of  nature's  God.  Five  and  forty 
years  have  passed  away  since  this  Declaration  was  issu- 
ed by  our  fathers ;  and  here  are  we,  fellow-citizens,  as- 
sembled in  the  full  enjoyment  of  its  fruits,  to  bless  the 
author  of  our  being  for  the  bounties  of  his  providence,  in 
casting  our  lot  in  this  favored  land  ;  to  remember  with 
effusions  of  gratitude  the  sages  who  put  forth,  and  the 
heroes  who  bled  for  the  establishment  of  this  Declaration  5 
and,  by  the  communion  of  soul  in  the  reperusal  and  hear- 
ing of  this  instrument,  to  renew  the  genuine  Holy  Alli- 
ance ef  its  principles,  to  recognise  them  as  eternal  truths. 


and  to  pledge  ourselves,  and  bind  our  posterity,  to  a  faith- 
ful and  undeviating  adherence  to  them. 

Fellow-Citizens,  our  fathers  have  been  faithful  to  them 
before  us.  When  the  little  band  of  their  Delegates, "  with 
a  firm  reliance  on  the  protection  of  Divine  Providence, 
for  the  support  of  this  declaration,  mutually  pledged  to 
each  other  their  lives,  their  fortunes,  and  their  sacred 
honor,"  from  every  dwelling,  street,  and  square,  of  your 
populous  cities,  it  was  re-echoed  with  shouts  of  joy  and 
gratulation  !  And  if  the  silent  language  of  the  heart  could 
have  been  heard,  every  hill  upon  the  surface  of  this  con- 
tinent which  had  been  trodden  by  the  foot  of  civilized 
man,  every  valley  in  which  the  toil  of  your  fathers  had 
opened  a  paradise  upon  the  wild,  would  have  rung,  with 
one  accordant  voice,  louder  than  the  thunders,  sweeter 
than  the  harmonies  of  the  heavens,  with  the  solemn  and 
responsive  words,  "  We  swear." 

The  pledge  has  been  redeemed.  Through  six  years  of 
devastating  but  heroic  war,  through1  forty  years  of  more 
heroic  peace,  the  principles  of  this  declaration  have  been 
supported  by  the  toils,  by  the  vigils,  by  the  blood  of  your 
lathers,  and  of  yourselves.  The  conflict  of  war  had  be- 
gun with  fearful  odds  of  apparent  human  power  on  the 
part  of  the  oppressor.  He  wielded  at  will  the  collective 
force  of  the  mightiest  nation  in  Europe*  He  with  more 
than  poetic  truth  asserted  the  dominion  of  the  waves. 
The  power  to  whose  unjust  usurpation  your  fathers  hurled 
the  gauntlet  of  defiance,  baffled  and  vanquished  by  them, 
has  even  since,  stripped  of  all  the  energies  of  this  con- 
tinent, been  found  adequate  to  give  the  law  to  its  own 
quarter  of  the  globe,  and  to  mould  the  destinies  of  the 
European  world.  It  was  with  a  sling  and  a  stone,  that 
your  fathers  went  forth  to  encounter  the  massive  vigor 
of  this  Goliah.  They  slung  the  heaven-directed  stone, 
and 

"With  beariest  sound,  the  giant  monster  fell." 


24 
. 
Amid  the  shouts  of  victory,  your  cause  soon  found 

friends  and  allies  in  the  rivals  of  your  enemies.  France 
recognised  your  Independence  as  existing  in  fact,  and 
made  common  cause  with  you  for  its  support.  Spain  and 
the  Netherlands,  without  adopting  your  principles,  suc- 
cessively flung  their  weight  into  your  scale.  The  Se- 
miramis  of  the  North,  no  convert  to  your  doctrines,  still 
conjured  all  the  maritime  neutrality  of  Europe  in  array 
against  the  usurpations  of  your  antagonist  upon  the  seas. 
While  some  of  the  fairest  of  your  fields  were  ravaged ; 
while  your  towns  and  villages  were  consumed  with  fire  ; 
while  the  harvests  of  your  summers  were  blasted  ;  while 
the  purity  of  virgin  innocence,  and  the  chastity  of  ma- 
tronly virtue,  were  violated ;  while  the  living  remnants  of 
the  field  of  battle  were  reserved  for  the  gibbet,  by  the 
fraternal  sympathies  of  Britons  throughout  your  land,  the 
waters  of  the  Atlantic  ocean,  and  those  that  wash  the 
shores  of  either  India,  were  dyed  with  the  mingled  blood 
of  combatants  in  the  cause  of  North  American  Indepen- 
dence. 

In  the  progress  of  time,  that  vial  of  wrath  was  exhaust- 
ed. After  seven  years  of  exploits  and  achievements  like 
these,  performed  under  the  orders  of  the  British  king  ; 
to  use  the  language  of  the  treaty  of  peace,  "  it  having 
pleased  the  Divine  Providence  to  dispose  the  hearts  of 
the  most  serene  and  most  potent  Prince,  George  the  III, 
by  the  Grace  of  God,  King  of  Great  Britain,  France,  and 
Ireland,  Defender  of  the  Faith,  Duke  of  Brunswick  and 
Luneburg,  Arch  Treasurer  and  Prince  Elector  of  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire,  and  so  forth — and  of  the  United 
States  of  America  to" — what  ?  "  To  forget  all  past  mis- 
understandings and  differences  that  have  unhappily  inter- 
rupted the  good  correspondence  and  friendship  which 
they  mutually  wish  to  restore" — what  then  ?  Why — 
;s  His  Britannic  Majesty  ACKNOWLEDGES  the  said  United 


25 

States,  viz  :  New  Hampshire,  Massachusetts  Bay,  Rhode 
Island  and  Providence  Plantations,  Connecticut,  New- 
York,  New-Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  Maryland, 
Virginia,  North-Carolina,  South-Carolina,  and  Georgia, 
to  be  Free,  Sovereign,  and  Independent  States  ;  that  he 
treats  with  them  as  such  ;  and  for  himself,  his  heirs,  and 
successors,  relinquishes  all  claims  to^the  Government, 
proprietary  and  territorial  rights  of  the  same,  and  every 
part  thereof." 

Fellow-Citizens,  I  am  not  without  apprehension  that 
some  parts  of  this  extract,  cited  to  the  word  and  to  the 
letter,  from  the  treaty  of  peace  of  1783,  may  have  dis- 
composed the  serenity  of  your  temper.  Far  be  it  from 
me,  to  dispose  your  hearts  to  a  levity  unbecoming  the 
hallowed  dignity  of  this  day.  But  this  treaty  of  peace 
is  the  dessert  appropriate  to  the  sumptuous  banquet  of  the 
Declaration.  It  is  the  epilogue  to  that  unparalleled  drama 
of  which  the  Declaration  is  the  prologue.  Observe,  my 
countrymen  and  friends,  how  the  rules  of  unity,  pre- 
scribed by  the  great  masters  of  the  fictive  stage,  were 
preserved  in  this  tragedy  of  pity  and  terror  in  real  life. 
Here  was  a  beginning,  a  middle,  and  an  end,  of  one 
mighty  action.  The  beginning  was  the  Declaration  which 
we  have  read  :  the  middle,  was  that  sanguinary,  calami- 
tous, but  glorious  war,  which  calls  for  deeper  colors,  and 
a  brighter  pencil,  than  mine  to  pourtray :  the  end  was 
the  disposal  by  Divine  Providence,  that  same  Divine 
Providence  upon  whose  protection  your  fathers  had  so 
solemnly  and  so  effectually  declared  their  firm  reliance, 
of  the  heart  of  the  most  serene  and  most  potent  prince 
to  acknowledge  your  Independence  to  the  precise  extent 
in  which  it  had  been  declared.  Here  was  no  great  char- 
ter of  Runny  Mead,  yielded  and  accepted  as  a  grant  of 
royal  bounty.  Thai  which  the  Declaration  had  asserted. 

4 


26 

•which  seven  years  of  mercy-harrowing  war  had  contest- 
ed, was  here,  in  express  and  unequivocal  terms,  ac- 
knowledged. And  how  ?  By  the  mere  disposal  of  the 
heart  of  the  most  serene  and  most  potent  prince. 

The  Declaration  of  Independence  pronounced-  the 
irrevocable  decree  of  political  separation,  between  the 
United  States  and  their  People  on  the  one  part,  and  the 
British  King,  Government  and  Nation  on  the  other.  It 
proclaimed  the  first  principles  on  which  civil  government 
is  founded,  and  derived  from  them  the  justification  be- 
fore Earth  and  Heaven,  of  this  act  of  sovereignty :  but 
it  left  the  people  of  this  Union  collective  and  individual 
without  organized  Government.  In  contemplating  this 
state  of  things,  one  of  the  profoundest  of  British  states- 
men, in  an  ecstacy  of  astonishment,  exclaimed  "  Anar- 
chy is  found  tolerable!"  But  there  was  no  Anarchy. 
From  the  day  of  the  Declaration,  the  people  of  the 
North  American  Union  and  of  its  constituent  States, 
were  associated  bodies  of  civilized  men  and  Christians,  in 
a  state  of  nature ;  but  not  of  Anarchy.  They  were 
bound  by  the  laws  of  God,  which  they  all,  and  by  the 
laws  of  the  Gospel,  which  they  nearly  all,  acknowledged 
as  the  rules  of  their  conduct.  They  were  bound  by  all 
those  tender  and  endearing  sympathies,  the  absence  of 
which  in  the  British  Government  and  Nation  towards 
them  was  the  primary  cause  of  the  distressing  conflict 
into  which  they  had  been  precipitated.  They  Were 
bound  by  all  the  beneficent  laws  and  institutions  which 
their  forefathers  had  brought  with  them  from  their  mo- 
ther Country,  not  as  servitudes,  but  as  rights.  They 
were  bound  by  habits  of  hardy  industry,  by  frugal  and 
hospitable  manners,  by  the  general  sentiments  of  social 
equality,  by  pure  and  virtuous  morals,  and  lastly  they 
•were  bound  by  the  grappling  hooks  of  common  suffering 
under  the  scourge  of  oppression.  Where  then,  among 


27 

such  a  people,  were  the  materials  for  Anarchy  ?  Had 
there  been  among  them  no  Bother  Law,  they  would  have 
been  a  law  unto  themselves. 

They  had  before  them  in  their  new. position,  besides 
the  maintenance  of  the  Independence  which  they  had 
declared,  three  great  objects  to  attain :  the  first,  to  ce- 
ment and  prepare  for  perpetuity,  their  common  union, 
and  that  of  their  Posterity  ;  the  second,  to  erect  and  or- 
ganize civil  and  municipal  Governments  in  their  res- 
pective States  ;  and  the  third,  to  forni  connexions  of 
friendship  and  of  commerce  with  foreign  Nations.  For 
all  these  objects,  the  same  Congress  which  issued  the 
Declaration,  and  at  the  same  time  with  it,  had  provided. 
They  recommended  to  the  several  States  to  form  civil 
governments  for  themselves.  With  guarded  and  cau- 
tious deliberation  they  matured  a  confederation  for  the 
whole  Union  ;  and  they  prepared  treaties  of  commerce, 
to  be  offered  to  the  principal  maritime  nations  of  the 
world.  All  these  objects  were  in  a  great  degree  ac- 
complished, amid  the  din  of  arms,  and  while  every  quart 
ter  of  our  country  was  ransacked  by  the  fury  of  invasion. 
The  states  organized  their  governments,  all  in  republi- 
can forms  ;  all  on  the  principles  of  the  Declaration.  The 
confederation  was  unanimously  adopted  by  the  thirteen 
States,  and  treaties  of  commerce  were  concluded  with 
France  and  the  Netherlands,  in  which,  for  the  first  time, 
the  same  just  and  magnanimous  principles,  consigned  in 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  were,  so  far  as  they 
could  be  applicable  to  the  intercourse  between  nation 
and  nation,  solemnly  recognised. 

When  experience  had  proved  that  the  Confederation 
was  not  adequate  to  the  national  purposes  of  the  country, 
the  people  of  the  United  States,  without  tumult,  with- 
out violence,  by  their  delegates,  all  cboscn  upon  princi- 
ples of  equal  right,  formed  a  more  perfect  Union,  by  tbe, 
establishment  of  the  Federal  Constitution.  This  has  al- 


28 

ready  passed  the  ordeal  of  one  human  generation.  In 
all  the  changes  of  men  and  of  parties  through  which  it 
has  passed,  it  has  been  administered  on  the  same  funda- 
mental principles.  Our  manners,  our  habits,  our  feel- 
ings, are  all  republican ;  and  if  our  principles  had  been, 
when  first  proclaimed,  doubtful  to  the  ear  of  reason  or 
the  sense  of  humanity,  they  would  have  been  reconciled 
to  our  understandings, and  endeared  to  ourhearts  by  their 
practical  operation.  In  the  progress  of  forty  years  since 
the  acknowledgement  of  our  Independence,  we  have  gone 
through  many  modifications  of  internal  government,  and 
through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  peace  and  war,  with  other 
powerful  nations.  But  never,  never  for  a  moment  have 
the  great  principles,  consecrated  by  the  Declaration  of 
this  day,  been  renounced  or  abandoned. 

And  now,  friends  and  countrymen,  if  the  wise  and 
learned  philosophers  of  the  elder  world  ;  the  first  ob- 
servers of  nutation  and  aberration,  the  discoverers  of 
maddening  ether  and  invisible  planets,  the  inventors  of 
Congreve  rockets  and  Shrapnel  shells,  should  find  their 
hearts  disposed  to  enquire  what  has  America  done  for 
the  benefit  of  mankind  ?  Let  our  answer  be  this  :  Ameri- 
ca, with  the  same  voice  which  spoke  herself  into  exist- 
ence as  a  nation, proclaimed  to  mankind  the  inextinguish- 
able rights  of  human  nature,  and  the  only  lawful  founda- 
tions of  government.  America,  in  the  assembly  of  na- 
tions, since  her  admission  among  them,  has  invariably, 
though  often  fruitlessly,  held  forth  to  them  the  hand  of 
honest  friendship,  of  equal  freedom,  of  generous  re- 
ciprocity. She  has  uniformly  spoken  among  them, 
though  often  to  heedless  and  often  to  disdainful  ears, 
the  language  of  equal  liberty,  of  equal  justice,  and  of 
equal  rights.  She  has,  in  the  lapse  of  nearly  half  a  cen- 
tury, without  a  single  exception,  respected  the  indepen- 
dence of  other  nations  while  asserting  and  maintaining 


29 

her  own.  She  has  abstained  from  interference  in  the 
concerns  of  others,  even  when  the  conflict  has  been  for 
principles  to  which  she  clings,  as  to  the  last  vital  drop 
that  visits  the  heart.  She  has  seen  that  probably  for 
centuries  to  come,  all  the  contests  of  that  Aceldama  the 
European  world,  will  be  contests  of  inveterate  power, 
and  emerging  right.  Wherever  the  standard  of  freedom 
and  Independence,  has  been  or  shall  be  unfurled,  there 
will  her  heart,  her  benedictions  and  her  prayers  be.  But 
she  goes  not  abroad,  in  search  of  monsters  to  destroy. 
She  is  the  well-wisher  to  the  freedom  and  independence 
of  all.  She  is  the  champion  and  vindicator  only  of  her 
own.  She  will  recommend  the  general  cause  by  the 
countenance  of  her  voice,  and  the  benignant  sympathy 
of  her  example.  She  well  knows  that  by  once  enlisting 
under  other  banners  than  her  own,  were  they  even  the 
banners  of  foreign  Independence,  she  would  involve 
herself  beyond  the  power  of  extrication,  in  all  the  wars 
of  interest  and  intrigue,  of  individual  avarice,  envy,  and 
ambition,  which  assume  the  colors  and  usurp  the  stand- 
ard of  freedom.  The  fundamental  maxims  of  her  poli- 
cy would  insensibly  change  from  liberty  to  force.  The 
frontlet  upon  her  brow  would  no  longer  beam  with  the 
ineffable  splendor  of  Freedom  and  Independence  ;  but 
in  its  stead  would  soon  be  substituted  an  Imperial  Dia- 
dem, flashing  in  false  and  tarnished  lustre  the  murky  ra- 
diance of  dominion  and  power.  She  might  become  the 
dictatress  of  the  world.  She  would  be  no  longer  the 
ruler  of  her  own  spirit. 

Stand  forth,  ye  champions  of  Britannia,  ruler  of  the 
waves  !  Stand  forth,  ye  chivalrous  knights  of  chartered 
liberties  and  the  rotten  borough  !  Enter  the  lists,  ye 
boasters  of  inventive  genius  !  Ye  mighty  masters  of  the 
palette  and  the  brush !  Ye  improvers  upon  the  sculpture 
of  the  Elgin  marbles  !  Ye  spawners  of  fustian  romance 


30 

and  lascivious  lyrics  !  Come  and  enquire  what  has  Ame- 
rica done  for  the  benefit  of  mankind  !  In  the  half  cen- 
tury which  has  elapsed  since  the  Declaration  of  Ameri- 
can Independence,  what  have  you  done  for  the  benefit 
of  mankind? 

When  Themistocles  was  sarcastically  asked  by  some 
great  musical  genius  of  his  age,  whether  he  knew  how 
to  play  upon  the  lute,  he  answered,  No  !  but  he  knew 
how  to  make  a  great  city  of  a  small  one.     We  shall  not 
contend  with   you  for  the  prize  of  music,  painting,  or 
sculpture.     We  shall  not  disturb  the  extatic  trances  of 
your  Chemists,  nor  call  from  the  heavens  the   ardent 
gaze  of  your  Astronomers.     We  will  not  ask  you  who 
was  the  last  President  of  your  Royal   Academy.     We 
will  not  enquire  by  whose  mechanical  combinations  it 
was,  that  your  Steam-Boats  stem  the  currents  of  your 
rivers,  and  vanquish  the  opposition  of  the  winds  them- 
selves upon  your  seas.     We  will  not  name  the  inventor 
of  the  Cotton-Gin,  for  we  fear  that  you  would  ask   us 
the  meaning  of  the  word,  and  pronounce  it  a  provincial 
barbarism.    We  will  not  name  to  you  him,  whose  graver 
defies  the  imitation   of  forgery,  and  saves  the  labor  of 
your  executioner,  by  taking  from  your  greatest  geniuses 
of  robbery  the  power  of  committing  the  crime.     He  is 
now  among  yourselves :    and  since  your  philosophers 
have  permitted  him  to  prove  to  them  the  compressibility 
of  water,  you  may  perhaps  claim  him    for  your  own. 
Would  you  soar  to  fame  upon  a  rocket,  or  burst  into 
glory  from  a  shell  ?  we   shall  leave  you  to  enquire  of 
your  naval  heroes  their  opinion  of  the  Steam  Battery 
and  the  Torpedo.    It  is  not  by  the  contrivance  of  agents 
of  destruction,  that  America  wishes  to  commend  her  in- 
ventive genius  to  the  admiration  or  the  gratitude  of  after 
times ;  nor  is  it  even  in  the  detection  of  the  secrets,  or 
the  composition  of  new  modifications  of  physical  nature, 

"Excudeut  alii  spirant! a  mollius  ecra," 


31 

Nor  even  is  hef  purpose  the  glory  of  Roman  ambition  ; 
nor  "  Tu  regere  lmpe.no  populos" — her  memento  to  her 
sons.  Her  glory  is  not  dominion,  but  liberty.  Her  march 
is  the  march  of  mind.  She  has  a  spear  and  a  shield  : 
but  the  motto  upon  her  shield  is,  Freedom,  Independence, 
'Peace.  This  has  been  her  Declaration  :  this  has  been, 
as  far  as  her  necessary  intercourse  with  the  rest  of  man- 
kind would  permit,  her  practice. 

My  Countrymen,  Fellow-Citizens,  and  Friends,  could 
that  spirit  which  dictated  the  Declaration  we  have  this 
day  read  5  that  spirit,  which  "prefers  before  all  temples 
the  upright  heart  and  pure,"  at  this  moment  descend 
from  his  habitation  in  the  skies,  and  within  this  Hall,  in 
language  audible  to  mortal  ears,  address  each  one  of  UB 
here  assembled,  our  beloved  Country,  Britannia  ruler 
of  the  waves,  and  every  individual  among  the  sceptred 
lords  of  human  kind  ;  his  words  would  be 

OO    THOU,    AND    DO    LIKEWISE. 


DAVIS  AND  FORCE,    PUISTBRS. 


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